catsearchd(1M)                                     catsearchd(1M)



NAME
     catsearchd - enhances file catalog search operations
     performed by the Macintosh Toolbox

SYNOPSIS
     catsearchd [-D] [-m mem-to-run] [-n nice-value] [-r
     rootpath]

ARGUMENTS
     -D   Enables debugging output.

     -m mem-to-run
          Specifies the amount of memory that must be installed
          on a system to enable catsearchd to lay claim to memory
          and begin building the cache.  The mem-to-run argument
          can be specified with an optional suffix letter
          indicating the units as kilobytes (k), megabytes (m),
          or pages (p).  For example, these are equivalent
          commands to enable this daemon only on systems with at
          least 20 MB:

             catsearchd -m 20m
             catsearchd -m 2048k
             catsearchd -m 5120p
             catsearchd -m 20971520

          If you do not use the -m option to specify the amount
          of memory that must be present, the catsearchd daemon
          uses 16 MB as a default - causing it to quit on any
          system in which it finds less than 16 MB.

     -n nice-value
          Specifies an incremental decrease in the priority of
          catsearchd.  Positive values reduce the impact of
          catsearchd upon system performance at system startup
          and whenever new file systems are mounted.  The default
          ``nice'' value is 4. For more information about process
          priorities, see nice(2).

     -r rootpath
          Specifies the starting directory below which catsearchd
          should cache file information. The default is the root
          directory (/).  This is a useful option for debugging
          purposes; it can be used to limit the file systems for
          which catsearchd builds file information caches.

DESCRIPTION
     The catsearchd daemon is a system process that scans file
     systems to build an information cache for each.  The file
     information cache increases the performance of file catalog
     searches from the Macintosh environment.  By default, only
     information about files on local (non-NFS) file systems are



March 1993                                                      1

catsearchd(1M)                                     catsearchd(1M)



     included in the information cache. However, you can control
     whether this scanning occurs for each new file system that
     you mount by using the cats and nocats mount options (see
     mount(1M)).

     Normally, catsearchd is invoked from /etc/inittab.  If you
     take steps to remove this daemon, you can restart it later
     to regain the performance enhancement it offers.

     The file system cache resides in memory. Each time the
     daemon is started it reads the mtab file looking for file
     systems mounted with the cats option, and then builds any
     caches that are needed.

     The cache built by the catsearchd daemon can significantly
     increase the performance of file catalog searches initiated
     through the Macintosh Toolbox (such as when the Find command
     is run from the Finder's File menu).

SEE ALSO
     mount(1M), startmac(1M)

     fstab(4) in A/UX Programmer's Reference
































2                                                      March 1993